The Oven Brings Back A Cool Memory

FORT WORTH, TEX. – Before heading over to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, a bunch of us flew here on Sunday with the folks at Nike Golf Canada.

On Monday, we’ll be checking out the Oven, Nike’s research and development centre that recently underwent expansion, including the addition of a massive short game area. It should be an interesting day.

I haven’t seen the Oven since it expanded, but going back there will certainly revive tales of one of the legendary stories in golf media circles that took place a couple of years ago.

As we prepared to depart from our last trip to the Oven, we were informed that a massive winter storm back home in Toronto had delayed and then cancelled flights, which left us all sitting in a hotel at the Dallas airport, not sure when we would get home.

The key player in this whole mess was Nike’s Victoria Bunag, who may still have her cell phone stuck in her ear after this debacle. Vic stayed on the phone until everyone had a way back, whether it was through Chicago or Philadelphia or all points in-between.

My own trip home took me through Chicago with GolfScene publisher Norm Woods, whose son Steve, who also handles creative for GNN, is on this trip. When we got to O’Hare Airport, Norm and I made our way to our connecting flight.

As we were about to board the flight to Toronto, we discovered that Norm was heading home on that flight, but my trip home wouldn’t take place until the next morning at 6:30 a.m. My best smooth talking would not convince the attendant to let me on with Norm.

After saying goodbye to Norm, and I swear he was giggling about the whole situation, I was a little disoriented. I walked across the street to a hotel to see if I could check in, but with the weather and the delayed flights, it was booked solid.

By this time, it was about 11:30 p.m. on a cold Chicago evening and, while I could have taken a cab to another hotel, there were no guarantees and I would have only been there about two to three hours before having to leave again.

Overnight in O’Hare Airport is not where you want to be on a cold February night, but mind you, I got a lot of work done before finally catching my flight.

We still tease the Nike folks about it, but really, there wasn’t much that could be done. I’m still amazed at what Vic pulled off to get us home when she did.

Many of the people who were on that trip are on the return to Fort Worth, so the old tale is bound to be brought up again. The nice thing is that we’re flying from here to Orlando, so winter weather shouldn’t be an issue.

Then again, they’ve had some pretty cool temperatures in Florida lately.

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